In the coming weeks, Ryanair will be completely eliminating paper boarding passes and airport check-in. Is this a radical change, or is Ryanair just ahead of its time?
Continue reading: Ryanair Scrapping Paper Boarding Passes: No Smartphone, No Flight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
I like to have a printed boarding pass when I travel. I do have a smart phone, but a printed boarding pass makes me feel protected against cases like low battery or bad network connectivity.
They'd have to accommodate people with disabilities who cab not use smartphone
This was my immediate thought. There WILL be people who are unable to use a smartphone due to disability who legally will have to be accomadated.
I would say that they've lost me as a customer but they never had me
Here's how to protect yourself against a low battery or bad network connectivity
1) be prepared. pack a power bank if that helps you. "my battery is low" is the new "my dog ate my homework" - it just isn't an acceptable excuse.
2) again, be prepared. take a screenshot and/or add your pass to your phone's Wallet app which functions without connectivity.
Stop making excuses for destroying the environment with single-use paper boarding passes.
I earn in excess of $10MM a year not because I am super smart (I am not) but because I am prepared.
Boarding pass in the app is also available when you're offline. As for battery running out, Ryanair will start offering free printing of BP at the airport in such cases (provided you checked in online).
I flew them twice (albeit without bags). As per ALL LLC's and ULLC's, if you understand and follow the rules/policies...it will be a nice flight. I have no issue with this new policy (although I dislike ticket QR codes) I use them on the LLC's no issue. For those grumbling, fly someone else...quite simple.
The tickets are so cheap; I just pay for what I want. First on/front rows etc. Makes for a pleasant flight.
People who have issues are not following the carrier's rule book.
ALWAYS screenshot your online ticket and QR code PRIOR to arriving at the airport, so you have it immediately accessible before arriving at security and the gate. Makes life a lot easier.
Looking forward to reading all the angry complaints from people who lost or broke their phone on the way to the airport.
They announced this some time ago and I can't believe that they can get away with this. What happens if you're blind/disabled, or your phone breaks/gets lost or stolen whilst you're on your holiday. It happens all the time.
Some older people prefer non smart phones that can only text/call and have large buttons.
I can see the headlines now - "Stranded abroad by Ryanair because my phone fell in the sea/got nicked/blew up etc and they refused to fly me home"
You do realise your amazing phone can break/get lost or stolen without warning. You can leave it in a cab/uber/on a train or bus.
I had one phone (less than a year old) destroy itself whilst I was using it as a hotspot in a meeting. S*** happens.
I'm also curious about the implications of this change from an accessibility perspective. As popular as smartphones are, they're not universally accesible.
I just checked my December Ryan Air flight and I paid for the "Plus" upgrade package that includes a checked bag, reserved seats and Complimentary Boarding Pass Issue. Can I get the €55 airport check-in fee refunded??
Does this mean there will not be a single crying baby or screaming toddler on my flight because they do not own smartphones? Yay!
They've charged for check-in/paper boarding passes before. Friend of mine forgot to check-in for a 9 euro flight during study abroad way back in 2012 and had to shell out 60 euro at the counter to get her boarding pass.
Frontier already has a similar program where they charge $25 for using the counter at the airport. They have "exemptions" that help them meet ADA. Unfortunately as Ben said, I bet we see this become more and more common
This is nonsense. It'll apply to the vast majority of travelers, but the Ryanair app still insists a number of countries passport holders front up to a desk for a visa check. It would be ludicrous to think I have to go to a desk to have them activate the ability to get a boarding pass on my phone, so I think paper BPs will continue to be issued for some time for those travelers, unless this roll out date coincides with some massive behind the scenes improvement on visa checks.
Eight Figures, a repeatedly shown wafer thin paper boarding pass if recycled, is actually much greener in terms of carbon footprint than a digital one with the backlight on full (which always happens on the mobile ticket app).
Won’t be applying in Morocco where the authorities require a paper boarding pass and Ryanair has a sizeable operation.
I don't think it will take long for somebody to sue over this, and likely win. It's pretty arbitrary to require every passenger to have a working smartphone with the RyanAir app in order to access the boarding pass for the flight they paid for.
What if a person broke their phone during their trip? Happened to me in Italy last November, by the time I boarded the flight home at the end of my trip my screen was basically unusable and nobody would have been able to see a boarding pass on it.
What if somebody doesn't have a smartphone? Not everyone does. Manufacturers still make and sell flip phones, because some people only want something cheap to call/text with and don't need a $600 pocket PC. And even beyond that, smartphones are attractive theft targets and many people do lose their phones on trips.
And that's not even getting into things like phone running out of battery or the app messing up.
Yet another dystopian move to mandate smartphones in the name of cost cutting and extra data collection. Not like Ryanair ever had me as a customer.
Also, not all of us want to be tethered to depressing touch screens for even the basic tasks in our life. I fear for the future.
Quit imposing your views of technology on me. We don't all want to be extremely over-reliant on depressing, addicting, and society ruining technology for getting from point A to B
I suspect this is illegal in at least one of the countries they're flying from. So it's likely that there will be exceptions.
One of my favorite things about paper boarding passes is using them as a bookmark for whatever I'm reading while I travel. I leave the boarding pass in the book when I'm done. It's fun to rediscover it when I pick the book up again in the future. Last year, I re-read a particular book for the first time in years and was delighted to find the CX boarding pass from our honeymoon.
How would it work with visa check that Ryan air forces for passengers without EU passport? In a way it is an improvement for me because I am guessing they have a solution for their stupid visa check process?
(1) There's a pre-written lawsuit when cell service/wifi craps out at an airport.
(2) Lawsuits aside, I'm wondering about workarounds - could someone set up a website that pretends to be a smartphone and print out the resulting page? (I'm hard-pressed to see how Ryanair could claim damages against such a service since now they're blocking paying them to print at the airport, and printing a backup copy in the event of a phone lockup seems reasonable.)
Then again, I expect fireworks when someone prints a pass that scans and the GA tries to deny boarding. In my dream world that GA would be told "If their ID matches, this person is flying, the only question is whether we have to arrest you" by security, but alas...
Might be too late, but if you'd noticed earlier I'd have suggested reversing the charge.
If you really earn eight figures, you probably don’t fly RyanAir. You probably fly business on legacy European or US carriers or private. Don’t preach to us lower earners about the environment being destroyed by paper boarding passes.
If you really are prepared, you arrive with both digital and paper. You’re right, you’re not smart. Perhaps stupid.
You mention that 70 percent of passengers use digital boarding passes, then that means that 30 percent do not, and that is a lot of people. It seems pretty discriminatory toward elderly people who may not be as well versed with technology. I hope they get sued for discrimination
Yeah, sporting and music events are already 100% paperless, but the difference is those are commodities, while traveling for many is still a necessity. Its a very big difference and not worth a comparison.
This makes me want to take up a job at Ryan Air’s IT department only to screw up the app and create a chaos that the di$&head can’t do anything about.
As other have said, my interpretation here is that this is their goal (based on my recent flights with them they are already pretty close). They will continue to have paper boarding passes for people with certain disabilities and as back up in case of system failure.
I have flown from Sydney to Melbourne the other day and believe Qantas is also very close to 0% paper boarding passes. Other than a couple who connected from an international flight, I think everyone had their boarding passes in their eWallets. Not a Qantas fan but the airport experience - check in, security and boarding - was superb.
There is a difference between requiring a digital boarding pass and requiring an app.
Most airlines' websites work just fine in a web browser (including a mobile web browser), you can check-in via a browser and get a boarding pass that you can display as-is, print a PDF, get an email confirmation with barcode/QR code, take a screenshot, or add to your phone wallet.
The reason Ryanair (and lots of other companies) want an app is that they will spy on your phone and steal lots of data. As an EU company, Ryanair will disclose everything the app does in the terms & conditions, it will effectively say ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US, and your choices will be "I agree" or you can't fly since there is no other way to get a boarding pass.
I hope someone with deep pockets sues over this.
I flew Ryanair DUB-PRG earlier this year on a U.S. passport and their website tried to get me to rub my iphone against an image on the screen in order to get approved and get a boarding pass. Couldn't get it to work after numerous attempts. When I got to the counter at DUB, I fully expected a lecture and a fee to print the boarding pass but they issued a paper boarding pass without an issue or a charge.
I love this too! I often start a new book when traveling and I will often get a printed boarding pass just for that purpose and use my digital boarding pass to actually get on the plane and stuff.
I finally had to throw away my CX F boarding pass from a 2016 trip a couple years ago because it was too tattered.
They could make it worse if you cannot get a screenshot of the boarding pass. If you try, then you are then banned for life or have to pay a huge fine. Or it will be like a disappearing photo.
Euro regulators will shutdown this stupidity quite soon. Not everyone has a smartphone, and they can break or be unable to connect at some point. Their ceo is a piece of
GOSH it is a horrible decision. It will impact millions of Seniors & Persons with Disabilities. The world is becoming very mean, complex and difficult and focused ONLY on Young Able Tech Savvy Adults and excluding everyone else. It is completely Un-Acceptable for an airline to do this. I strongly condemn this decision.
People who fly Ryanair don't love themselves enough. This high-handed behavior is standard fare for this bottom-feeder airline.
Using a cell phone is not for the young tech savvy adults. You need to update with the times. Are you complaining that not having a telephone book published anymore is the same hinderance?
I understand how eliminating the ability to print a boarding pass at the airport saves the airline money but I'm not clear how getting rid of the ability to print one out does?
There is some cost to maintaining the software that allows the BP to be printed but it's minuscule and if the scanners can read the code on the phone, they can read the same code printed on paper.
What am I missing?
Not a lawyer (and realize this airline isn't U.S. based) but this sounds like a disability non compliance lawsuit waiting to happen.
I think an airline here in the US would have issues under the Air Carrier Access Act as there are people who are capable of traveling unescorted who might not be in a position to use a cellphone but would have no problems carrying a paper ticket that had been printed out for them beforehand.
One imagines they have similar rules in Europe but one has to think that Ryanair's lawyers have done their homework and feel they aren't going to run into regulatory problems. Or maybe they're deliberately allowing for blowback so they look magnanimous when they offer passengers who need it the ability to print out a hard copy.
Certainly will be interesting to see what happens.
PS Lucky if you see this please let me know that you got the names I sent you.
That’s really not fair Brian. I have Grandparents in their 90s that gave to go back home occasionally on flights without us and having printed boarding pass in essential. You can’t think the whole world is just smartphone-able people.
"Use our custom software, or you can't do business with us!"
Not a feature, as far as I'm concerned. Ever. From anyone. Hard pass.
If you choose to fly Ryanair already, and have all manner of indignities heaped on you for the sake of a 'cheap fare' [but is it really cheap??], including this upcoming slap in the face....then that's on you. What kind of treatment were you expecting from an airline boss who publicly hates you?
I’m an American citizen who has flown Ryanair numerous times within Europe using a digital boarding pass on their app with out a problem until this past July. I purchased a flight from Athens, Greece to Paphos, Cyprus. When I tried to get my boarding pass the app instructed me to first scan my passport into the app. After repeated unsuccessful attempts the app told me to I would have to see a ticket agent to receive a boarding pass.
Since I was not checking luggage it was annoying to wait in the long Ryanair line at the Athens airport. When I finally reached an agent and told her she needed to check my passport and issue me a boarding pass she said a passport check wasn’t required for Cyprus and she could print our boarding passes for 55€ each. I protested that the app wouldn’t issue us boarding passes and told us to see an agent. Can you prove it? The agent asked. I opened the Ryanair app on my phone and fortunately the page directing me to an agent was still there. Thank you for showing me that, the agent said, I will print your passes for free.
I told the ticket agent that I had tried repeatedly to scan my passport into the app but it didn’t work. Oh, she said, as she handed me our boarding passes, your passports don’t have a bar code embedded in them so they can’t be scanned.
I guess that after November I won’t be able to fly Ryanair.
What makes you think Ryanair has no procedures for disabled passengers in place?
You don't need to be online to present boarding pass in the app. It works in offline mode too.
How exactly would Ryanair spy on you and steal data just because you have their app on your phone?
Where did you all come up with the idea that cell service needs to work at the airport for passengers to present their boarding pass? That's just not the case. It works fine without connection too.
Of course check-in desk will still be issuing paper boarding passes when needed. In fact, they're supposedly removing the reprint fee to cover situations when your phone may run out of battery etc.
That's not what article is about. This changes covers self-print boarding passes, not the ones issued at the airport.
Nothing. Ryanair app works in offline mode too (assuming you have already checked in of course).
In my flights, when I observe the people ahead of me at the gate, the 70/30 phone vs paper boarding passes seems about right. And they're not all old people, and I'm usually in the first or second group, so I'm assuming many of them are frequent flyers. so there are definitely lots of people who prefer paper passes.
To the other conditions that people have talked about (disabilities, broken phones) I would add that if you have a connecting flight, your battery can easily die during your first flight and not be available for your second one. Even if you bring a charger there are plenty of times when an outlet is broken and you don't have time to charge during a quick layover. Especially since there's no IFE and so you're expected to use your phone as your entertainment too.
(NB I'm aware Ryanair doesn't sell connections but lots of people self-connect)
Hi Lucky,
The €20 fee is being removed.
‘There’ll be some teething problems’ – Ryanair guidance for passengers over new paperless boarding passes
Tell me what the alternative is if I want to fly direct from Dublin to Wroclaw or Lodz?
lambdatest.com may be useful for that
It will simulate most 'phones (and laptops)
Why wouldn't you be able to fly Ryanair after 1 November? Nothing will change in the scenario you described - when online check-in is not available, you will check-in at the airport for free.
Ryanair also likes to p*as of customers just for sadistic pleasure and no other real gain. Never flown them and have no plans of doing so.
They've been fined repeatedly for treatment of disabled passengers, so...
Of course, you might as well be named Tim Dunnigan, given your defense of the indefensible with these guys.
I always wonder how far I can push unreasonable rules. What if I operated a LCC that generates a secret paraphrase with every ticket, and it’s hidden deep within the legalese. The customer then needs to say it out at the check in counter within 15 seconds, or else you need to pay an extra 50 euro to fly?
Seems crazy that you need to have a smart phone or otherwise need to pay extra to fly (and why I’d never fly LCC if not otherwise unavoidable).
This seems disastrously punitive.
But then again I wouldn't be flying Ryanair regardless. An airline that thinks that little of its customers doesn't deserve our business
What? There is no law requiring you to fly Ryanair . If you don't like the policy, pick another airline. It's genuinely that simple.
There was no mention having an alternative to the app for disabled passengers in the Ryanair announcement but I agree it seems reasonable that they do.
In which case anyone who doesn't want to use the app just claims to be disabled.
@Samo
What makes you think Ryanair will always follow the their own procedures for disabled passengers in place?
Let's be real, just because there are procedures for disabled passengers, EU261/UK261, etc. it doesn't mean airlines will always follow them through.
You can read from numerous articles, not necessarily in OMAAT, that airlines try very hard to avoid such responsibilities written in their own procedures or government regulations, to the point of making false statements, claims, etc.
Thanks, Gray. I was half joking since the entire bundle of add-ons above was $50 USD. It wasn't broken out by individual perk. I'm glad this Ryan Air flight exists since it's the only nonstop flight from Nuremburg to London on a Sunday before 8:45pm.
"I guess that after November I won’t be able to fly Ryanair."
Or better yet, why would you WANT to?
This is how they treat you, by putting YOU on the defensive for THEIR product's screwup, yet you wish to reward them with more business?
Im looking to fly between two cities in Europe next summer. Either I put up with Ryanair for a 100 minute flight or spend a fair amount more connecting in AMS or CDG extending it to an all day journey. (Trains aren't an option here.)
Will not work here in Germany! We always print out our digital boarding passes, because sicher ist sicher.
Just because you put something in T&Cs doesn't make it enforceable. In the hypothetical scenario you described, Ryanair would absolutely lose any court case.
However this change they're implementing has been well communicated to passengers so I don't see a reason why it would be illegal. Whether it may push lawmakers to introduce a new law forbidding the practice is another matter.
I don't see why Ryanair wouldn't follow their own procedures. That would just make them lose customers and court cases.
Special procedures for disabled passengers exist at Ryanair, they are followed and this will be covered by them too.
I'm aware of Cambridge Analytica. I don't see how it's related here. You don't post anything on the Ryanair app (other than data needed for the trip, which has also been case on the website) and it's up to you whether you grant them permissions regarding location etc.
Look for airports to offer free PDA's with WiFi with only airline apps installed. The PDA essentially becomes the ticket. Once the trip is complete you bin them at luggage pick up where they are reset and put out for the next customer.
I have made more thn 70 flights with Ryanair. I am 80 years old and don't have a digital phone. I have just booked my next flight, to tenerife, with Jet2.
I am 81 years old, I do not have a smartphone and even if I did I would not know how to work it. I have been flying Ryanair since 1994
WHAT DO I DO NOW??
I believe that the ability to live and function outside the digital world ought to be a universal basic human right. That should include the ability to function exclusively in an analogue way as well as the ability to use cash to make purchases regardless of the amount of the purchase.
Flying Ryanair for first and last time when I fly back to UK in December. I did not know about the change in boarding passes when I booked. I cannot use a touch screen as they do not respond to my touch. Ryanair response is that I should get someone else to download it for me. Are they going to pay for a companion to travel with me each time so I think this is hello and goodbye ryanair